In a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle equipped with a boat horn, Flint native Janet Howle has embarked on a 14,000-mile drive around the world.

View full sizeCOURTESYJanet and Ed Howle stand beside their 1967 Volkswagen Beetle, which they plan to drive around the world in the World Race 2011.

She, husband Ed and their car named Stewball are one of 18 teams participating in the World Race 2011.

They started in New York City on April 14 and are driving west to San Francisco, where the cars will be shipped to China. From there, the race resumes before eventually ending three months later in Paris.

“We are really ready to go,” said Janet Howle, who graduated from Southwestern High School in 1963.

“Ed has actually replaced the horn in our Beetle with our boat horn. Apparently they drive with their horns in Beijing.”

The Howles had just arrived in Denver when reached by phone Friday afternoon.

Janet Howle said the trip so far has been intense as they’ve battled road construction and high winds while trying to keep a competitive pace.

“I swear I have never had such wind,” she said. “With the Beetle, it just tosses it around.”

Driving into Manhattan to start the race was a hassle — and she fears Beijing’s traffic will be even worse — but the couple are looking forward to seeing the world and being able to say they’ve driven around the globe.

“I can’t say that the driving itself is the most fun part,” Janet Howle said. “I think it’s the people who you’re on the rally with. It’s a unique group of people, people who take time out of their lives to do this.

“They’re people who love adventure, and they’re willing to be serendipitous about whatever the day brings.”

The international rally is meant to re-create the Great Race of 1908, in which winner George Schuster made the 22,000-mile drive in 169 days.

On the first day of the race, the drivers visited Schuster’s grave in Springville, N.Y.

“That was a very moving experience,” Howle said. “The whole town came out to see us.”

The group is rallying from New York to San Francisco primarily along back roads, stopping in 12 cities along the way, including St. Louis and Salt Lake City.

Each group pays its own way or gets help from sponsors.

“You get to see a lot of the country, small towns that nobody ever sees,” Howle said.

After the classic and alternative energy cars are shipped across the Pacific to China, they’ll hit Kazakhstan, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, before ending the journey in Paris.

“It’s very exciting because we’ve rallied across the U.S. before, but we have never driven in China and Kazakhstan,” she said.

The couple have been driving from coast to coast in rallies since they took up the hobby in 2003.

They planned to make the trip around the world in 2008, but the event was canceled because of unrest in China.

That didn’t stop them from writing a fictional book, “The Long Road to Paris,” based on what they believed the trip would be like, with some romance and espionage added in.

Now that they’re embarking on the trip, they’re prepared to create some real-life adventures.

Hours before setting off on each leg of the trip, drivers are given routes to the next destination, and teams use precision driving to race to each city.

“I don’t know what the route will be. That’s part of the competition,” said Howle.

The event isn’t a speed race, but rather a timed adventure based on accuracy and finding solutions, according to organizers.

Teams are competing for trophies sculpted with sand collected from the 1908 and the 2011 routes, to be presented at the Eiffel Tower.

Given their mode of transportation and the fact that Howle is 65 and her husband is 76, the Chapel Hill, N.C., couple know they could have an uphill battle for the title.

Even the Beetle’s name — Stewball — is taken from the title of a 1963 Peter, Paul and Mary song about an underdog racehorse.

“We’re the oldest team on this rally, and we have the most underpowered car,” said Janet Howle. “We’re definitely the underdogs, but we’ll have some fun.”

“There will be some days when we say, ‘Why in the world did we take this on?’ but most of the time, we’ll enjoy it.”